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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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6 ? 6 Dr . /» Pye Smith's Rejoinder to Mr . BahewelVs Remarks
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$ 00 , should ha ^ e been charmed with such a sight , if I had reason to believe it to be the result of serious conviction and holy choice : but , knowmg it to be a matter of routine , ; prescribe ^ not by mind and character but by age and , custom , prepared for by a mechanical course of observances , deemed
necessary to precede a young person ' s introduction into the world , and immediately followed by a plunging into giddy dissipations as remarkable , in the one extreme , as the gloomy season
of austerity which preceded it was in the other , I could not but perceive in this usage so much of the nutriment to delusion , hypocrisy and formality , as stripped off . its pleasing garb and left the impression of only grief and
pity . My opinions , truly unwelcome and painful to myself , of the prevailing irreligion in Geneva , notwithstanding the retention of public forms which were to me externally very pleasing , have been derived not irom " an active
imagination / ' as Mr . B . conceives , but chiefly from the information of natives , in whose competency and integrity I have full confidence : and ] Mr . B / s denial does not relieve me
from the persuasion of the strict truth of what I have asserted ; that notorious infidels and immoral persons come to the sacred , table , without impediment ; and that infidelity , licentiousness and blasphemy have fearfully increased , without a counterbalancing increase of true Christians . To this
last circumstance I entreat attention . It is most material to the comparative estimate ; but Mr . B . has entirely passed it by . In London , Manchester , Glasgow , and many other parts of our
own country , infidelity and every kind of wickedness have perhaps increased ; yet I doubt whether in a greater proportion than the increase of population . and the opportunities of developing what existed before . But the counteracting * process has also been
going on , * in a most encouraging degree . The powers of evil are mustering themselves 5 but the energies of good are also on the alert ; and Goi > will prevail over Satan . Mr . B . charges me with talcing no account of the " demoralization in
countries that were the seat of war . ' But , if he will do me the favour lo refer to my attempted enumeration of
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the causes and occasions pf ; the < eflfeet ; deplored , ( p . 46 $ of this vol . >) he will find other circumstances mentioned besides the declension of ike Genevese from the profession of evangelical principles . Among these is the con * taminatioa from the worst part of the French nation . Under this ideal
designed to comprehend the effects of th < e French Revolution , so far as they were evil : and , though I probably had not the wars occasioned by the Revolution actually in my thoughts , yet they might be not improperly considered as a part of those effects * .
If Mr . BV has found , in the circles in which he moved , that acquaintance with the evidences and doctrines of religion which he asserts is so general among all classes at Geneva , I do most sincerely rejoice . I hope that the assertion is , in , part , true . Those
who have committed to memory either of the two Catechisms , greatly deficient as they are in the views which they give of Christian truth , are in possession of a respectable sketch of scripture-history , and of the external evidences of revelation : and a feeble
light , though insufficient for the most important purposes of vision , is better than gross darkness . But my information derived , at different times , from natives of Geneva and other persons better qualified to judge than Mr . B . can be , is far from going the length
of his statements . I apprehend that the time and pains bestowed by Mr . Haldane upon these inquiries , within a single week , exceeded all that Mr . B . could or would spare from scientific pursuits and evening parties during the whole of his two winters . The
Theological Students of the College must surely have afforded the most favourable specimen of the religious culture of youth in Geneva , Mr . Haldane is a man whose veracity is above all question , and this is his testimony :
"Had they been trained in the schools of Socrates or Plato , and had they enjoyed no other means of instruction than those afforded , they could scarcely have been more ignorant of the doctrines of the gospel . They had , in fact , learned much more of the
doctrines of those Heathens , than of that of Jesus Christ , To the Bible and its contents their studies Jiad never been directed * " ( Letter to JW . Chenevitre , p , 21 . )
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1824, page 676, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2530/page/36/
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